Ep 224: Lowdown with Adam Zwar and Amanda Brotchie

We speak with creators of ABC TV’s Lowdown, Amanda Brotchie and Adam Zwar.

Also we review the recent HBO series, How to Make it in America.Update: We were planning on reviewing this show but ended up talking to our excellent guests for a little longer than expected. We’ll pick this up in a couple of weeks. Sorry for the confusion.

10 Comments

I'd like to defend Nelly's (slightly) good name – she wasn't wagging to watch the Survivor finale, she had a gig on the wireless and therefore couldn't fill in for John this week. And yes, Danielle is mental and Probst is in fine form. Go Russell.

For what its worth, I will vouch for Happy Town as well. I have been enjoying this since it appeared on channel BT.Alternatively for something nothing like Happy Town, new British crime drama (i think thats what it would be classed under) Luther is a little different and also worth a look at.

I live in Adelaide and oddly enough the quality of our reception of some channels has gone down. We are no longer able to receive SBS clearly from the digital transmitter where previously we were able to get SBS no problem. we can still get it on the old analogue signal, hopefully this new transmitter fixes the problem.

As I've commented before, I seldom watch live-to-air TV. But in recent weeks I've discovered Dirty Jobs, and become addicted to Jon Stewart on ABC 2, so my weekly TV watching has gone up by something like 6 hours a week, from… maybe an two hours a month.

I live in Canberra, and now that I'm watching telly, what I've noticed is just how often the digital signal drops out. Only for a few seconds here and there, but it's still a couple of times an hour. I would rather a less clear continuous signal, than a sharp signal that drops out, but maybe I'm odd.

No no no you don't want that! When I visit friends in Bendigo (Vic) Channel 10 reception is so bad – the picture and sound constantly breaking up, very poor quality – that we have to watch it on ANALOGUE!! Oh the horror!! Oh my god – I just realised I will be in trouble when they turn off the analogue signals, how will I watch Neighbours?!?!?!?!?

To be fair, I'm a Doctor Who fan, and for years the only way to see some stories was to watch a 10th generation copy where everyone looked like blobs in snowstorms, and it was hard to hear the dialogue over the hum on the soundtrack. So maybe I'm immune to the lure of crystal clear picture.

Well, that and when I got the DVD of Five Doctors, I suddenly realised that crystal clarity is not Doctor Who's friend.

Have to say, I liked my first episode of Lowdown. Every time I thought they were setting up for an obvious and easy gag, they left it alone, meandered off and did something unexpected and much funnier.

It's not a hilarious, laugh a minute show, but it is very well written and reasonably clever. Thanks Boxcutters for getting me on to it.

PS, have seen first two episodes of Happy Town, and rather like it. Look forward to hearing your thoughts in the coming weeks.

I remember those days, Dalekboy! We'd have a seventieth-generation VHS tape and it would be so exciting because you couldn't see these stories any other way. In fact, you couldn't even see them the way we were watching them. Occassionally there's just be a white screen and some nostrils, like Patrick Troughton guest-starring in Mulligrubs. And the sound had a constant hiss that would get much louder when anyone stopped talking.